Hello from an avid E Ink fan

[MaineMan]

Greetings everyone. I'm Stephen from Radnor, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. I'm an electrical engineer who has been out of work for a couple of years now. I'll be 70 next summer and I have no burning desire to get re-employed. Mostly I did Digital Signal Processing and USB design/firmware. I spent ten years working on whiteboard pen/stylus tracking hardware and firmware - similar to the Wacom stylus technology used in the Boox M92 reader. I grew up in the woods of Maine and retain a deep love of trees and the woods [Link deleted]. Four years ago I built a 13 by 13 foot deck located 45 feet up in a red oak tree in my back yard [Link deleted]. Some other interests are biking, kayaking, kites, photography and classical music (my wife is a cellist in the Philadelphia Orchestra). My favorite vacations spots are my log cabin on Wyman Lake in Maine [Link deleted] and the beaches of Cape May Point, New Jersey [Link deleted].

I got into E Ink devices in a rather unusual way. In 2005 I graduated from a 3-year course is Gestalt Therapy taught by an amazing woman, Mariah, who has lived with a milder form of ALS for about thirty years [Link deleted]. Her movement and speech are severely impaired. During a conversation with her in the fall of 2007, I happened to ask her if she was able to read books. She replied that, although she could, due to her handicap it took her longer to turn a page than it took her to read the resulting two pages. I thought there had to be a better way and began researching electronic readers. My first encounter with an E Ink device was when I walked into a local store that December and found a Sony PRS-505 on display there. The device appeared to have a piece of paper attached to the screen to show how it would look when it was on. I was amazed to learn that I was looking at the screen itself in the device's off state. I bought that Sony, then got a first generation Kindle and an iRex iLiad. After we evaluated them, I got another iLiad for Mariah. She uses the iLiad, but admits to neck fatigue; better to position a reader on a stand and turn pages remotely. I got a Kindle DX. But Amazon was not interested in adding a remote button interface to their USB port. So I ended up using two solenoids (electronic button pushers) for remote paging. I got into publishing by creating ebook versions of Mariah's book for both Kindle and iPad. Now I am looking into eye-tracking devices that might be used for cursor positioning through an Ereader's USB port - perhaps a Boox M92.

After spending much of my life staring at a computer screen, the E Ink display is a visual breath of fresh air - especially the E Ink pearl screens with their rich, lush tones. They have a quiet, anti-tech, retro quality that I love, reminiscent of the old film noir visual style of 60 years ago. I find that I read about three times as much on E ink readers as I did with paper books. I have a keen interest in optimizing the Ebook reading experience - in presentation and especially navigation which can be a challenge for the slower E Ink devices.

When I learned that Amazon dropped their Kindle DX graphite, I panicked and bought one on Ebay. Then I took a closer look at the Boox M92 and some related MobileRead discussions and today ordered one through [Link deleted] (the last day of 2012 so I got my free shipping). I'm looking forward to much learning and many discussions.

Happy New Year to All !

[WT Sharpe]

Greetings and welcome to MobileRead.

[MickeyC]

Hi Stephen and welcome to MobileRead.

[Valmore Daniels]

Welcome to the boards

[ImogenRose]

Welcome to MR!

Imogen